


Nightmare Fuel

by SonjaJade



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Child Abuse, Gen, Mental Instability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-11 11:32:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10463955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SonjaJade/pseuds/SonjaJade
Summary: Riza’s haunted by the memory of a very fateful night and wonders if she always will be.





	

**Author's Note:**

> FMA Fic Contest Prompt: Horror

For weeks she’d slept _under_ her bed, out of sight, on her stomach.  It didn’t matter though.  He didn’t bother her again after that, at least didn’t bother her for anything more than a fresh cup of coffee or another pen or more parchment.  Still, the nightmares would come, and the only place she felt safe was under her bed like a small child.

The night he did it, Bertold had been laughing and almost giddy.  “Come, Riza.  This won’t take but a moment.”

She thought it odd that he’d spoken to her at all, but took at as perhaps he’d had an epiphany of some sort, or maybe watching that Mustang boy grow from an awkward adolescent into a young man had shown him how fleeting time really was.  But no.  When he stripped her nightgown off, her first thoughts were that he’d snapped and was going to rape her.  And sometimes afterward, she wondered if it wouldn’t have been easier if he had.

He had a hollow needle and many vials of dark red ink, and he began repeatedly sticking her over and over again, despite how she cried and begged and pleaded with him to stop.  He’d alchemically bound her to the table, swatted her bottom and legs hurtfully when she whined too loudly or for too long, didn’t allow her to eat or even go to the bathroom…  He kept her tethered to the table for two days without food while he finished her tattoo.  Despite being ravenous, despite being exhausted and terrified, she ran topless from the room and promptly dry heaved over the commode.

When the bout of nausea passed and she turned to race to her room and cover herself, she found her father in the doorway.  He reached out and grabbed her shoulders, “Riza, you are now the guardian of my life’s greatest research.  I am trusting you with it because you are a better judge of character than I am.  Do not let it go to waste.”

Ever since then, Riza had taken to sleeping on the cold bare floor under her bed.  Sometimes she’d cry, sometimes she’d silently curse him and the symbol that had now healed on her back.  Most times she found herself pining away for the Mustang boy, knowing that if he were there, Bertold would likely leave her alone for good, and she wouldn’t be alone in the house with the mad man anymore.  As she lay waiting for sleep to come and claim her, she heard her father’s cackling laughter from downstairs and shuddered.


End file.
